It is reasonable that the primary purport should regard the supreme excellence of Vishṇu. For emancipation is the highest end of all men, according to the text of the Bhállaveya Upanishad: While merit, wealth, and enjoyment are transitory, emancipation is eternal; therefore a wise man should strive unceasingly to attain thereto. And emancipation is not won without the grace of Vishṇu, according to the text of the Náráyaṇa Upanishad: Through whose grace is the highest state, through whose essence he is liberated from transmigration, while inferior men propitiating the divinities are not emancipated; the supreme object of discernment to those who desire to be liberated from this snare of works. According also to the words of the Vishṇu-puráṇa—
"If he be propitiated, what may not here be won? Enough of all wealth and enjoyments. These are scanty enough. On climbing the tree of the supreme essence, without doubt a man attains to the fruit of emancipation."
And it is declared that the grace of Vishṇu is won only through the knowledge of his excellence, not through the knowledge of non-duality. Nor is there in this doctrine any confliction with texts declaratory of the identity (of personal and impersonal spirit) such as, That art thou (for this pretended identity) is mere babbling from ignorance of the real purport.
"The word That, when undetermined, designates the eternally unknown,
"The word Thou designates a knowable entity; how can these be one?"
And this text (That art thou) indicates similarity (not identity) like the text, The sun is the sacrificial post. Thus the grand revelation:—
"The ultimate unity of the individual soul is either similarity of cognition,
"Or entrance into the same place, or in relation to the place of the individual;
"Not essential unity, for even when it is emancipated it is different,
"The difference being independence and completeness (in the Supreme Spirit), and smallness and dependence (in the individual spirit)."